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September 24, 2012

[In a
meeting with Iranian expatriates in New York on Sunday evening, Mr. Ahmadinejad
belittled Israel’s significance and the military threats Israel has made
against his country over its disputednuclear program. “A number of uncultured
Zionists that threaten the Iranian nation today are never counted and are never
paid any attention in the equations of the Iranian nation,” Mr. Ahmadinejad
said, according to a summary of his remarks on hisEnglish-language Web site.]

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended a high level conference on implementing

universal standards of law at the United Nations General Assembly in

New York on Monday

Defying
a warning by theUnited
Nationssecretary
general against inflammatory remarks, PresidentMahmoud
AhmadinejadofIransaid Monday that Israelis had no
historical roots in the Middle East and that the existence ofIsraelwas just a passing phase in the
region’s long history.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York on Sunday for the
annualGeneral
Assemblymeeting, made
the remarks in a breakfast session with selected members of the media. Later on
Monday he spoke at the United Nations; he will speak there again on Wednesday.

At the breakfast meeting, he said that the Israelis had
been around the region for only 60 or 70 years, in contrast to the Iranians,
whose civilization has existed for thousands of years.

“They have no roots there in history,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said
of the Israelis, according to Reuters. “They do not even enter the equation for
Iran.”

In a meeting with Iranian expatriates in New York on Sunday
evening, Mr. Ahmadinejad belittled Israel’s significance and the military
threats Israel has made against his country over its disputednuclear program. “A number of uncultured
Zionists that threaten the Iranian nation today are never counted and are never
paid any attention in the equations of the Iranian nation,” Mr. Ahmadinejad
said, according to a summary of his remarks on hisEnglish-language Web site.

The Iranian president, known for incendiary language
against Israel, is in the last nine months of his final term in office, and
there had been widespread expectations he would use his remaining appearance at
the General Assembly to excoriate and provoke Iran’s enemies, who suspect Iran
is developing the ability to makenuclear
weapons. Iran has repeatedly denied its nuclear energy program is
for military use.

Secretary GeneralBan
Ki-moon, who has repeatedly admonished Iranian leaders against
making anti-Israel and anti-Semitic remarks, had a conversation with Mr.
Ahmadinejad on Sunday to reiterate the warning that such language could cause
“potentially harmful consequences,” Mr. Ban’s press office said ina statement.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech on Monday came during a one-day
high level conference on implementing universal standards of law. In his
comments, he sounded many of the themes that have run through all his past
appearances.

Without mentioning any country by name, he lashed out at
the United States for ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal while trying to shut
down Iran’s nuclear program.

“Some members of the Security Council with veto rights have
chosen silence with regard to the nuclear warheads of a fake regime, while at
the same time they impede the scientific progress of other nations,” he said.

He also indirectly attacked the United States and others
for defending freedom of speech even when it defames religion, a reference to
the online video attacking the Prophet Muhammad that incited demonstrations
around the Muslim world, including Iran, many of them violent, over the past
three weeks.

“They themselves wrongly invoke the U.N. charter and misuse
freedom of speech to justify their silence toward offending the sanctities of
the human community and to divine prophets,” the Iranian leader said.

Mr. Ahmadinejad compared that to reactions to questions he
has raised about the Holocaust, although again without being specific. However,
he has made the same point over so many visits to the United Nations that the
meaning was clear.

“They support these offenders and infringe upon other’s
freedom and allow sacrilege to people’s beliefs and sanctities, while they
criminalize posing questions or investigating into historical issues and jail
the researchers,” he said.

The Iranian leader is scheduled to deliver his General
Assembly speech on Wednesday, which coincides with Yom Kippur, the holiest day
in Judaism.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s annual visits to the United Nations have
become something of a media event. For the past few years he has stayed at the
Warwick in Midtown Manhattan, where cordons of heavy security have kept
anti-Iran demonstrators across the street.

The New York Post, which has made no secret of its
hostility toward Mr. Ahmadinejad, said it hadtried to deliver a
gift basketover the
weekend to the Warwick filled with items including Gold’s Borscht, Manischewitz
gefilte fish, Murray’s Sturgeon Shop whitefish, Zabar’s cream cheese and a free
ticket to the Off Broadway show “Old Jews Telling Jokes.” The Post said Iranian
officials at the hotel declined to accept it.

["The government's
treatment of Dieu Cay appears to be inconsistent with Vietnam's obligations
under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the
provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights relating to freedom of
expression and due process," it said in a statement.]

By The Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A Vietnamese court issued jail sentences ranging from four to 12
years on Monday to three bloggers who wrote about human rights abuses,
corruption and foreign policy, intensifying a crackdown on citizens' use of the
Internet to criticize the government.

The cases are
particularly high-profile examples of the Communist government's attempts to
stifle challenges to its authority on the Internet, which has emerged as a
major avenue for dissent in the country of 87 million people. President Barack
Obama has mentioned one of the defendants, and the mother of another died after
setting herself on fire to protest her daughter's arrest.

The defendants, two men
and one woman, are founding members of the "Free Journalists' Club,"
a group of citizen journalists who posted their work on the Internet. They were
found guilty of spreading "propaganda against the state."

Nguyen Van Hai, who has
written under the pen name Dieu Cay or "Tobacco Pipe," got 12 years,
Ta Phong Tan received 10 years and Phan Thanh Hai got four years, according to
defense lawyer Ha Huy Son.

The trial in Ho Chi Minh
City lasted less than six hours. The country regularly convicts dissidents, but
sentences have generally been around five years.

The United States, which
is seeking closer economic ties with Vietnam but is also pressing it on human
rights, quickly criticized the sentences. Obama mentioned Nguyen Van Hai's case
in a May speech that called for greater freedom for media around the world.

"The government's
treatment of Dieu Cay appears to be inconsistent with Vietnam's obligations
under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the
provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights relating to freedom of
expression and due process," it said in a statement.

Nguyen Van Hai
criticized the government for its handling of tensions with neighboring China
over disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Tan, a former police
officer, wrote a blog called "Justice and Truth" that criticized
police abuse of power. Her mother set herself on fire in protest of the case in
late July.

International rights
groups have condemned the trial and called for the release of the defendants.

"These harsh
sentences against bloggers are absolutely outrageous, and show the depth of the
Vietnam government's intolerance of views that oppose its own," said Phil
Robertson from Human Rights Watch. "Today's sentences show how deep-seated
the Vietnam government crackdown on basic human rights really is."